Writing & News
Feature by Gabriella Coslovich, The Age/Sydney Morning Herald 26.3.2026
Review by Jason Steger, The Age 1.4.2026
The Secret Landscapes. Clara Brack, Upswell, $32.99
This book, by the daughter of artists John Brack and Helen Maudsley, addresses what she calls “the disjunction between the artist as a parent and the artist in their work”. The problem is that both painters believed what Maudsley said: “Private is private, public is public.” Brack employs different literary techniques − memoir, of course, but also biography and imaginative fiction − to create a tender but candid portrayal of her parents and, indeed, herself. As she says: “No one starts out writing knowing where it will take them.”